It certainly is good to know that even with all of Rutgers' struggles during this disappointing season, game-day coaching is not among the problems. How do we know this?

The head coach told us.

"Quite frankly, I've done a better job X and O coaching than I ever have," Greg Schiano said this week, just days after his team went to Connecticut and lost 38-19 to a team with, by any objective estimation, inferior talent. "I think our staff has. I don't think it's the X's and the O's."

He continued to say his failing was not "being able to reach down inside a young man and pull out what needs to be pulled out." Greg Schiano, the motivator, apparently is taking the bullet from Greg Schiano, the tactician.

Look, nobody lives and dies with a football program more than Schiano. He has staked his career on his ability to elevate and keep this team at an elite level, turning down a job at a place -- Miami -- with a proven track record for winning national championships.

He has earned the right to be frustrated. But his best X's and O's ever? That sure does sell short the job he did last season, when he collected Coach of the Year awards and brought this team to within a dropped two-point conversion of playing in a BCS bowl.

And it ignores bushels of evidence on the field. In no particular order, Rutgers has trouble protecting the punter, covering on punt and kickoff returns, fielding punts and kickoffs, converting in the red zone, creating turnovers, stopping the run, avoiding costly penalties and fooling the defense with its playcalling.

The Scarlet Knights lost at home to Maryland, a team that could finish 4-8, when the X's and O's couldn't counter a physical Terrapins front line. They lost at home to Cincinnati, when there were times when the Bearcats hurry-up offense had already snapped the ball as the Rutgers defense -- Schiano's defense -- was scrambling to get in position.

Even Schiano criticized himself for several decisions in the loss to Connecticut, including an ill-timed blitz that freed up a perfect draw play for a long touchdown run, and having backup quarterback Jabu Lovelace throw his first pass on a crucial third down near the end zone. He missed a few others, including the failure to figure out a way to defend UConn's talented tandem of kick returners.

Are X's and O's not a factor here?

"As a coach, sometimes, you look at your plan and say, 'Man that's good stuff,' when it doesn't work you say, 'Hmph, maybe it's not.' But I haven't done that," Schiano said. "I've looked at it and said yeah, that's good stuff, but we're just not getting the people to ..."

He stopped short of saying his players are to blame, which in fairness, is something Schiano has never done. If he didn't do it when the team was in the basement of the Big East, he certainly isn't going to do it now, when his team is still just a victory away against Army from bowl eligibility.

But when he calls this his best season for X's and O's and the team is 5-4, the logical question is, well, where is the problem? Intentionally or not, Schiano is shifting the blame to his players when, as head coach, he should be doing everything possible to deflect it from them.

At the college level, the head coach is always the reason for a struggling team, even when he's not. That might sound like nonsense, but the man in charge is the one pulling in close to $2 million a year, while his players are the ones scrounging for loose change between the sofa cushions and have a term paper due the morning after a loss.

Schiano was joking when he said "there's a possibility that maybe Vince Lombardi himself couldn't" find a way to bring out the best in his team. He probably knows that it was Lombardi who once said, "The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have."